Tools2Use

Dr. Herb Goldberg is one of America’s best-selling authors and acknowledged experts on men, women, and relationships. For a twenty-year period, Dr. Goldberg’s bestselling books such as The Hazards of Being Male,The Inner Male and What Men Really Want provided guidance to the confused, wary, overwhelmed and frozen; his books broke new ground in the 1980’s and 90’s and were million-selling books in America, with highly successful editions in places such as Germany, Japan, China, France, England, and Scandinavian countries. He returns to writing in order to address the critical relationship concerns for contemporary men and their female partners. Dr. Goldberg was one of the first to write about the psychology of men and now his new book has rekindled the many “I just don’t get it” aspects of men’s contemporary experiences with women. Filled with illuminating case histories, concrete guidelines and sound advice, it is this book, What Men Still Don’t Know About Women, Relationships and Love, that may save the personal lives of millions of men and women who continuously fall into the same traps. As a therapist, researcher, and advocate, Goldberg returns to writing from decades in private practice and teaching at California State University, Los Angeles where he is currently an Emeritus Professor of Psychology. Goldberg has appeared on Oprah twice, a week on Good Morning America, and was a regular guest on the Phil Donahue Show (which included a ground-breaking two time in one week appearance in which Donahue recruited an all-male audience).

According to Goldberg, “It is crunch time for men today. Divorce battles, custody fights, poisonous interactions, and accusations of abuse and harassment alongside the everyday unhappiness are at an all time high. Men’s personal isolation and dependency on women is greater than ever, while women’s anger, withdrawal from relationships with men, and their defensive sense of being victimized also are at a peak. On every level of contemporary life women are growing and emerging while men are shrinking and failing. Without a significant change in awareness, insight, and commitment, men will become increasingly toxic in their personal connections, and unable to maintain close, personal relationships resulting in painful isolation. Men need information, interpretations and guidance that go beyond superficial advice about love and relationships and the usual lectures about how to treat a woman.”

Goldberg tells us that men need concrete personal maps, not general “how to” ideas that act like a temporary “feel good” pep talk. What Men Still Don’t Know About Women, Relationships and Love is a book for all men, and for women, too — since Goldberg explores a woman’s process — the deeper invisible elements that create her experience of relationships, as well as masculine conditioning that produces blind spots, blocks, vulnerabilities in his relationships with women.

Goldberg illuminates why highly romantic beginnings may put relationships on a path toward rage-filled endings like we see in so many celebrity marriages; why the genuinely sexual woman may be a contemporary myth; how fighting custody battles can be a no-win situation for men and why fathers should fight legal battles for child custody in certain cases.

What Men Still Don’t Know is an incredibly important book — a wake-up call from the front lines of Goldberg’s work as a contemporary therapist. Goldberg is determined to set a collective new dialogue, refine and redirect men’s progress, and guide those trying to get themselves on a new course but who are puzzled and overwhelmed. This is exactly what his book sets out to do and accomplishes. Dr. Goldberg once again takes his place as one of the most successful, visionary, accessible, and best selling psychologist authors of all time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR HERB GOLDBERG, PH.D.

The prolific author of numerous articles in addition to his eight books, Herb Goldberg is an ardent men’s advocate and explorer of the hidden dynamics of gender and relationships and Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. A gifted writer who is passionate that his readers understand the complexity of the deeper, unconscious aspects of human behavior, Dr. Goldberg communicates the excitement of the personal journey. Dr. Goldberg has appeared on numerous talk shows and has been featured in publications such as Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, USA Today, Men’s Health, and Psychology Today. He has been a regular guest on CNN programs, as well as having been interviewed several times in years past by Charlie Rose and Larry King. Radio interviews have numbered in the hundreds. Selections from his books, as well as original articles and interviews have regularly appeared in publications such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Men’s Health, Mademoiselle, Psychology Today, Vogue, Women’s Day, Ladies Home Journal, New Woman, McCall’s, Harper’s Bazaar, and Women’s Digest, among others.

“Goldberg is at his best chopping a path through the jungle of relational power dynamics that hide men and women…The narrative will vividly convey the molasses viscosity of our modern dilemma…guys won’t find a better guide.” —Houston Chronicle

Dennis E. O’Grady, Psy.D., is a Dayton region communications psychologist, who is always on the lookout for new works that create better relationship communication. Dr. O’Grady’s systematic communication system is not gender-driven, and is set forth in his third book, Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With Anyone.

Taught sex-role expectations, in the front or back of your mind, should not be allowed to dictate your destiny. The gender-gap can be bridged using the ground-breaking Talk to Me system. TTM is a “Communications Positioning System” that permits clear discussion of relationship expectations. Dr. Goldberg’s book — “What Men Still Don’t Know” — clearly shows how the beliefs mode (minus B1) can run your life around in circles until you become stuck in the rut of relationship resentment. The way out? Use smooth new communication moves that get you and yours where you need and want to go.

My marriage could’ve gone the other way. You taught me how to change myself. I was a criticizer. That’s why I say there’s no such thing as constructive criticism. I was wrapped around the axle of rules. Now I don’t snap or turn nasty, and I don’t have to hold my tongue. My wife and I have our communication lines open. There’s nothing we can’t talk about. We do well together, and we do well apart. My eyes have been opened.

Your website is beautifully done, striking a great balance between being accessible yet without trivializing. I took your test and came out as an Empathizer. That strikes me as accurate. You’re a fine role model for psychologists needing to learn how to reach the public with integrity and no threat. Thanks!

A new identity: Personality Doctor
(Condensed from a paper of greater depth, relying on more than 100 references)

By Herb Goldberg, Ph.D. and Justin Powlison, B.A.

The identity of clinical psychologists is in danger of being lost among the myriad of other professions in the mental health field because much of the psychologists’ work has fallen to others by default.

In a study conducted by Donna Davidovitz, Ph.D., (1997) it was reported that among psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, social workers performed half of all brief therapy, whereas psychologists performed approximately a third.

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) reported earlier this year that more than 600,000 Americans have social work degrees and 320,000 hold state licenses. NASW went on to point out that more than 50,000 marriage and family therapists – a 50-fold growth since 1970 – are treating over 1.8 million people at any given time.

It is symptomatic of psychologists’ muddled image (psychologists as therapists) that “life coaches” with no professional psychological training are replacing psychologists still further.

I propose that psychologists return to their roots and seek an identity in the public mind as “Personality Doctors,” a distinction that could not be readily co-opted by other disciplines. Only those with doctoral degrees can call themselves doctors, and our education, training, and history make us uniquely the experts in the understanding, assessment, treatment, study and research of personality.

Personality assessment is a major heritage of psychology that has been mostly forgotten as psychological assessment and testing have continued to decrease (Norcross, Karpiak and Santoro, 2005). However, clinical psychologists are the only professionals qualified to do this work. It is only licensed psychologists who are legally permitted to purchase and utilize psychological testing instruments as the WAIS, MMPI-2 and Rorschach tests. Medical doctors are experts on the physical body. Clinical psychologists are experts on the personality, which can be thought of as the psychological body.

Today’s psychologists, including many clinicians, are becoming something separate from the original purpose and mission of our discipline; they are striving to be all things to all people. The American Psychological Association currently boasts 55 divisions, ranging through Peace Psychology, Exercise and Sport Psychology, Population and Environmental Psychology and many other fields. Clinical psychologists have become, in many ways, their own worst enemies by diluting the profession’s relevance, identity and mission.

Psychology textbooks (Griggs, Proctor and Cook, 2004; Griggs, Jackson, Christopher and Marek, 2000) are increasingly more focused on “biological influences on behavior, cross-cultural issues, cognitive research, evolutionary theory, neuroscience and genetics” and less on psychological factors including psychodynamic, humanistic and personality issues and theories (Cush and Buskist, 1997). On the list of the nation’s highest-ranked universities for 2006 published by U.S. News & World Report, only eight of the top 23 offer an accredited clinical psychology graduate program.

The textbooks reflect the profession’s ambivalence, confusion and even self-contempt. It has brought into the hoary notion that psychologists are not really scientists and so they compensate by covering themselves in the cloak of the so-called real sciences.

The more psychologists turn toward biochemistry, the more they stray from the purpose, the vision, the dream, the tradition and the mission of psychology. It would be likewise if they were turning toward astrology for answers. If the fight to gain prescription authority continues and is won, as it already has in two states, clinical psychology will further be in danger of regressing toward a pseudo-science funded by the deep pockets of pharmaceutical companies (Baker, Newnes and Myatt, 2003; Jefferson, Greist and Katzelnick, 1997; Reist and VandeCreek, 2004).

Under the new banner of Personality Doctors, psychologists could also separate themselves from negative terms such as “mental illness” and “mental disease.” These “sickness” labels too often steer clients away. By going to less threatening practitioners, such as MFTs, people avoid going to clinical psychologists who, in the public mind, use these concepts. With their new image, clinical psychologists could once again provide the much-needed help that medication can only barely begin to offer and come to be viewed as the primary – and most importantly – the best providers of that help.

Positioning clinical psychologists as Personality Doctors would furnish the attention and opportunity to educate the public about the reality of personality and its needs in a non-threatening way. It could demonstrate that the assessment and adjustment done by Personality Doctors is very much needed as the public is educated to understand that people need to work on their personalities just as they need to attend to their bodies. The marketplace changes could be dramatic, if not revolutionary.

Psychologists could separate themselves from the many other “mental health professionals” whose training does not even come close to the training that clinical psychologists receive. Until now psychologists knew this, but the public did not. It is incumbent upon psychologists to change that. Not only is it a responsibility, but it might just heal and transform the profession as well.

Herb Goldberg, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of the Department of Psychology of California State University, Los Angeles, and is a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles. His student, Justin Powlison, has a B.A. in psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, and intends to pursue a doctoral degree in psychology. Goldberg can be reached by mail at 3739 Mayfair Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90065-3208 or by email: drherbgoldberg@aol.com. Dr. Goldberg’s latest book is What Men Still Don’t Know About Women, Relationships, And Love.

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Thousands of seminar participant evaluations have indicated that Dr. O'Grady has a rare ability to present his growth-oriented insights in a dynamic and entertaining format that assists participants to grasp and utilize the content within their lives. Dean Dan Brazelton Sinclair Community College - Dayton, Ohio

I just sent the "Talk to People" link out to your participants I really think this kind of additional follow-up is valuable to our members, so thank you for all of your effort!

Thanks again for everything - it was such a pleasure working with you. I hope to work with you again soon! Jane Lee Manager, Education & Training - The Ohio Society of CPAs

We had heard in advance that you would enlighten and motivate us, but none of us were prepared for the truly outstanding presentation you provided. S. Hardin Kettering*Moraine*Oakwood Area Chamber of Commerce